I recently moved to Jamestown, North Dakota, which means I’m doing something I’ve had to do a few times now: start over in a new community.
I did it in Cedar Rapids. I did it again in Riverside. Now I’m doing it in Jamestown. Each move has made me better at meeting people, building relationships, and finding my place in a community.
But the biggest lesson has not been a networking trick. It has been much simpler: you have to be willing to be uncomfortable.
You have to try something new before you know how it will go. Sometimes you have to walk in alone. You have to introduce yourself when it would be easier to stay quiet. And then you have to keep showing up long enough for those uncomfortable first experiences to actually become relationships.
The uncomfortable part is usually the point
There is something vulnerable about doing anything new in public. You do not know whether people will be welcoming, whether the conversation will be awkward, or whether the event will be worth your time. When you go alone, there is no friend beside you to make the room feel familiar.
It is easy in those moments to convince yourself that you do not need to be there. I have felt that plenty of times. But I have also started noticing a pattern: a lot of my growth has been sitting directly on the other side of something I initially did not want to do.
Going somewhere alone. Introducing myself. Asking a question. Attending an event where I know nobody. Telling someone what I am working on before I know whether they will care. None of that necessarily becomes comfortable. You just become more willing to do it while uncomfortable.
That is what vulnerability looks like to me in this context. It is not oversharing. It is being willing to be seen trying something new before you know the outcome.
Cedar Rapids taught me to put myself in the room
When I was in Cedar Rapids, I started learning that a new community was not going to introduce itself to me. If I wanted to meet people, I had to go somewhere.
That sounds obvious, but there is a big difference between knowing you should get out and actually getting dressed, driving somewhere by yourself, walking in, and starting conversations with strangers.
The first few times are the hardest because you do not have any evidence that it is going to work yet. Then, eventually, something changes. You recognize somebody. Someone remembers you. A conversation from the last event continues at the next one. One introduction leads to another.
The room that originally felt unfamiliar starts feeling smaller.
Cedar Rapids taught me that professional networking is less about having the perfect thing to say and more about putting yourself in enough rooms for relationships to have a chance to develop.
Riverside taught me to stay long enough
By the time I moved to Riverside, I was more willing to attend things, talk to people, and introduce myself. Eventually I moved from simply entering other people’s rooms to creating some of my own through The Wealth Social.
That introduced a different kind of vulnerability. Creating something means people can reject it. You can invite people and they might not come. You can put an idea in front of strangers and wonder whether they understand it. You can host something and leave wondering whether it was actually worth doing.
The temptation is to judge everything based on the first result. I do not think that works.
Relationships need repetition. Communities need repetition. Even your own confidence needs repetition. Sometimes you attend something and nothing significant happens. You come back anyway. Eventually somebody recognizes you, a conversation gets deeper, or a person introduces you to someone else.
You have to stay around long enough for people to know who you are.
Showing up once takes courage. Showing up repeatedly takes patience. Riverside helped me understand that both matter.
Being new does not mean you have nothing to offer
That is the mindset I am bringing into Jamestown. I just got here, so I am not going to pretend I already understand the business community, the social scene, or what this city needs.
But I do not have to be the expert to provide value. I can listen. I can ask questions. I can attend something somebody else created. I can learn who the connectors are. I can introduce two people who should know each other. I can highlight somebody doing interesting work.
Being new can actually make some conversations easier because there is no reason to fake expertise.
“I just moved here. What should I know?” is a perfectly good way to start a conversation.
So is: “What are you working on?” or “Who else do you think I should meet?”
Vulnerability creates an opening for someone else to help you. In my experience, that often gets you farther than trying to look like you already have everything figured out.
If you are also new to Jamestown and trying to figure out where people actually go or what there is to do, I recently wrote about things to do and people to meet in Jamestown. The same principle applies professionally: first, find the rooms.
How I am approaching Jamestown now
I am trying to keep the process simple: go somewhere new, even if I have to go alone; talk to people even when starting the conversation feels uncomfortable; come back often enough to become familiar; and contribute something instead of only asking what the community can do for me.
Eventually, that creates a network. And once you understand a community well enough, you can start creating your own rooms too.
That is where MKé Exchange fits for me. I want to bring people together around business, money, careers, entrepreneurship, and the interesting things people are building. But I think the right way to do that in a new place is to participate first and build from what you learn.
You do not have to arrive as the expert. You can arrive curious, useful, and willing to meet people.
Go anyway — and stay long enough to see what happens
I still do not love every part of putting myself out there. There will probably be places in Jamestown where I walk in alone and wonder why I came. There will be introductions that feel awkward and events that do not lead anywhere immediately.
The difference is that I do not interpret that feeling the same way anymore.
Before, discomfort could feel like a reason to leave. Now I am starting to see it as part of the process. When I look back at Cedar Rapids and Riverside, some of the best relationships, experiences, and growth started with me doing something that would have been easier not to do.
Go anyway. Talk to somebody. Come back. Stay long enough to see what happens.
That is what I am carrying with me into Jamestown. Maybe that is really what building a professional network from scratch looks like.
If you are in Jamestown and you are building something, working on an interesting idea, or know someone whose story deserves a conversation, I want to hear about it.